Students, faculty rally for academic freedom at FAU

Event comes on heels of administration's decision to end controversial 'step on Jesus' exercise

April 9, 2013|By Adam Sacasa, Sun Sentinel

Some Florida Atlantic University faculty and students say academic freedom at the school is threatened after officials made the sudden decision on March 22 to never again use a "step on Jesus" exercise.

They held a protest against the decision on Tuesday, aiming to get the administration's attention and remind them that the right to teach controversial subjects shouldn't be limited after Professor Deandre Poole performed the classroom exercise on March 4.

Professor Manju Pendakur with the school of communications and multimedia studies at FAU, asked protesters and others to visit a link on the FAU.edu website where its lists the school's values, part of which read: "free speech and academic freedom are two of the core values of the university."

"What has happened on the campus in the recent past is a direct attack on those core values," Pendakur said.

Standing in front of the FAU administration building with protesters, Gabi Aleksinko, a senior intercultural communications major, took out a stack of papers and pens, handing them out to the 50 or so students and faculty participating in the protest.

Re-creating the original exercise, she asked the group to think of something important to them and asked them to step on the paper.

She picked out one woman who didn't step on her paper to highlight the options students had in the exercise.

"It was a good thing that Dr. Poole made it explicitly clear that you did not have to step on the piece of paper, isn't it?" she asked the crowd.

Not all students agreed with the protesters.

Justin Chaffiot, is a senior communication studies major and a Christian. He said he wasn't on board with the protesters, adding that he wouldn't have stepped on the paper if he was in the class.

"I do take that offensively, but at the same time, understand the point of the exercise was just relative to the power of symbols and the effect they have on a person, Chaffiot said. "I just feel like if you use any person that has to do with a faith or a movement, you're begging for a fight."

He thinks things would have been different if Muhammad or Martin Luther King Jr. were used on the paper instead.

There have been several high-profile protests against the lesson, including one from The Rev. Mark Boykin, of Boca Raton-based Church of All Nations. He led a protest on Thursday.

Gov. Rick Scott added to the criticism in a meeting with the Palm Beach Post Editorial Board on Monday. He told the newspaper that he agrees with the university's decision to stop the exercise, and said "college students shouldn't be asked to step on 'any spiritual leader's name.'"

Chris Robe, an associate professor in Film and Media Studies at FAU and president of the Faculty Union, disagreed with Scott's comments, saying Scott "doesn't understand what education is about."

The Faculty Senate plans to debate the issue with the FAU administration in a meeting on April 19. He invited the public to attend to hear the debate in the Engineering East building at East University Drive and 20th Street on the Boca Raton campus.